John F. Sherry Jr., Ray W. and Kenneth G. Herrick Professor of Marketing at the University of Notre Dame, recently receivedbest paperrecognition from the Marketing Science Institute (MSI) for his working paper describing how companies progress through certain stages in order to become more market-oriented.
Creating a Market Orientation: A Longitudinal, Multifirm, Grounded Analysis of Cultural Transformationwon the annual Robert D. Buzzell Best MSI Working Paper Award for 2008. The award honors papers that have made the most significant contribution to marketing practices and thought over a two-year period, and recognizes writing and research that has lasting value to corporate marketing executives, according to the institute.
The study – co-authored by Gary F. Gebhardt, professor of marketing at the University of South Florida, and Gregory S. Carpenter, professor of marketing strategy at Northwestern University – suggested that companies engage in a four-stage process of transformation (initiation, reconstitution, institutionalization and maintenance). The research further uncovered six values that served as a company foundation for the changes to follow, leading to market-oriented behaviors and a strong organizational culture.
Sherrys winning paper was selected from among 24 working papers accepted for publication by MSI. Criteria include quality of the conceptual framework, potential impact on MSI companies and subsequent academic research. The award was instituted in 1993, but renamed in 2002 to honor Robert D. Buzzell, the executive director of MSI from 1968 to 1972.
Sherry, who also is chair of Notre Dames marketing department, specializes in consumer experience, symbolic communication, ethnographic methods, cultural analysis andservicescapes,which refers to the impact a physical environment has on customer-seller interactions. He has researched how consumers co-create the marketers offering at the ESPN Zone and Niketown entertainment centers, as well as the meanings experienced by mother-daughter-grandmother consumers of the American Girl doll brand.
_ Contact: John F. Sherry Jr., (574) 631-6484 or_ " jsherry@nd.edu ":mailto:jsherry@nd.edu
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